Towson State Tiger Tracks, November 30, 1977

WHEELING STOPS TIGERS The Towson State University men's varsity basketball squad kicked off its 1977-78 season last weekend in Wheeling, W.Va. where the Tigers were involved in a four team tournament with Wheeling College, West Liberty State and La Roche College of Pittsburgh. Things went our way in the opening game. With senior forward Brian Matthews lead¬ ing the attack coach Vince Angotti's cagers ran away with a 76-61 win over West Liberty. Matthews, last year's leading scorer, poured in 17 points and grabbed a game high 18 rebounds and chipped in four steals and three blocked shots. Senior center Bobby Washington paced all scorers with 19 points. He had six rebounds. Elsewhere, senior point guard Roger Dickens tallied 11 points. Sophomore forward Charles Lawler came off the bench to net 14 points, getting 12 of those in the first half to spark an early rally which helped us to a 34-28 lead at the half. Freshman guard Myron Crippen started the game in relief of sophomore Mike Dukes, a starter we had to leave behind because of a severe case of the flu. Junior Larry Johnson was the other starter, qettinq the nod at forward. The Tigers rested a day after the West Liberty bout and then met Wheeling, which trounced La Roche 109-75 in its first game, for the championship on Sunday. The Cardinals pulled it out in the waning seconds, handing us a 59-58 defeat to win their own tournament. Wheeling jumped out to an early lead which held up until midway in the second half when a Matthews foul shot gave us the advantage at 38-37. We led by as much as six in the second half before the Cardinals, with more than a little help from a pair of whis¬ tle happy officials, closed the gap at 58-57 with 20 seconds to play. Crippen was fouled with 15 seconds left but failed to hit his free throw. The Cardinals got control of the ball and moved it down the floor. Ed Graham then let fly with a 20 foot jump shot that split the nets with six seconds left. Dickens immediately called a time out but the Wheeling scoreboard operator didn't stop the clock until two more seconds had ticked away. A furious Angotti made an appeal and as a concession the officials made the timekeeper put another second on the clock. Five seconds isn't a lot of time to go the length of the floor and score. We inbounded the ball, whipped it to Lawler whose 30 foot jumper clunked off the side of the rim to preserve the victory for Wheeling. "I knew that if we played to our potential we would beat them badly," said Angotti. "And I knew that if we didn't play up to par that it would be a close game. We're easily 15 points better than Wheeling but that's not going to show up in the record books. " Matthews turned in another sterling performance, scoring 22 points and hauling down 12 rebounds. Dickens was the only other Tiger in double figures with 10 points. Matthews was named to the All Tournament team. Graham, naturally, was the tournament's Most Valuable Player although his statistics did not compare with Brian's. Matthews was the class of the tournament. The Tigers, who didn't return home until late Monday afternoon because of a heavy snowfall which forced them to spend an extra night on the road, met St. Mary's College last night in their final tune up for this weekend's Boh Metro Tournament. The Tigers face Johns Hopkins University at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday night in opening round action. Other games see UMBC and the University of Baltimore going at it at 5:00 p.m. and Morgan State University and Loyola College colliding at 9:00 p.m. Top seeded Coppin State draws a bye and won't play until Friday evening at 7:00 p.m. when the Eagles meet the Morgan-Loyol a winner. -over-